Dusty Chalk

Raspberries? I'll pass. (Although I have to admit to being curious, so please do post impressions.) Me: beer. Way. Too. Much. Beer. I'm probably set for the next 5 years. (Found a stash of the Left Hand Oak-Aged Imperial Stout. So I bought it. I'm going to have to return that watch.)

[enabler]Glad I could help![/enabler] You could do worse than The Diamond Age and Snowcrash. I have -- but have not read -- Anathem yet, so take that with a grain of salt. Easily one of my favorite authors. PS The fourth storyline was supposed to be the earliest, but is not the Baroque Cycle nor any part of it. But I get the feeling the one involved into the other.

Win. Pic is ++good.

Ditto.

I'm wondering why you're getting "dark" out of your O2/KGSS. Is there a lot of variance between O2's?

Dude, everyone should see Gwar at least once in their life. Wear clothes that you don't care about, and that's all I'll say.

Me -- was listening to an unusual assortment of Porcupine Tree -- not sure what was going on with my iPod, but it played a couple of random tracks, then settled into The Incident -- can't say that I minded.

I don't like gorgonzola, but everything else looks dreamy, in a 50's kind of way. Me: chocolate

Okay, first of all, that wasn't me, but I am just as retarded, and that was still funny.

Okay, but that's not 'cloud computing', as I know it. I'm pretty sure that means flight simulator. Or a game based on Sky Crawlers/Kildren.

You've heard the story, haven't you? I've heard him speak (it's why my copy's signed) -- the book exploded. He turned in an interim manuscript -- as the publishing company is wont of him to do -- and they told him, you must stop, you're done, aren't you? And he said, "no, not by a long shot, haven't you read it?" And they said, "no, but there's a physical limit, beyond which, if you write one more word, we'd have to separate it out into two volumes -- and we could do that, but the economics of sales of the books is such that, ...well suffice it to say, it'd be more worthwhile if'n you actually wrote two books". He looked into it. Hence, the Baroque Cycle, and why the hardbacks are printed on such exquisite parchment. And why the paperbacks are in -- what is it, 8 books, rather than the hardback 3? And why it's called a 'cycle', rather than a 'trilogy', because he intended from the beginning for there to be a completely different number of paperbacks than hardbacks. But at the time, he just said, "well, alright, I'll drop the fourth storyline, and finish the other three". !!!

Wait, whut? Email and web browsing are "cloud-computing tasks"? Since when?

Sweet, thanks for the recs, insta-wishlisted. Me: Crematory, Infinity -- yes, Crematory -- you don't get a better metal name than that. And it's just what it sounds like. Mix of clean and ...er...whatever the opposite of clean is, dirty?...singing, but both male, so not "beauty and the beast". And yes, it might be the same singer, don't know, don't care. Fucking rocks, that's all I care about.

'Crikey' is an understatement.

The problem with that is, it'd be almost 4:32 by the time I read it...I'd start reading it, then it'd flip over a minute, and I would get distracted, and would have to start over.

Not here, but I bought that album based on the strength of the recommendations on this board quite a while ago, I should go listen to it now.

Mebbe she should charge more.

Perfect. KIDDING!

I have to admit to having a soft spot for diamonds.

Pfff. Welcome to several weeks ago.

I don't think there's any need for that after SO's post. PS That was especially awesome while listening to Dexter Gordon.

Quoted for 's'awesomeness.

The distance traveled by helium-neon laser light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second, duh.

A watch:

Quoted for emphasis -- this is awesome: